Piece by Piece

On a near perfect morning to run our team stepped up and went a perfect 5-0 in dual team scoring at the MSU Bobcat Invitational.  Our top five was comprised of three sophomores and two freshmen.  Newcomer Giselle Slotboom led us in her first race as a Ute as she finished fifth overall.  Andrea Chavez and Susannah Hurst also garnered top ten finishes (8-9).  True frosh, Charlotte Kuzinsky shined again in her second ever collegiate race finishing 16th overall.  Montana native Nikki Rietz was 24th to round out our top five.  Our top three were all under 18:00 for the 3 mile course.  Lauren Mills and Kate Stringfellow provided great depth with 37th and 42nd place finishes.  Megan Combe also showed great improvement from her first race with a top 50 (49th) performance.  Hillary Troutner and Nikki Dotter were 66th and 76th overall.  

Up next:  We will be off next weekend before heading to the Stanford Invitational on September 29th.  

Yum Yum!!!

A huge thank you from our team goes out to longtime Crimson Club and Utah Athletics supporters, Dr. Craig Lee and his wife Linda for hosting a dinner for our team at their amazing home last night.  (Yes, we check with the compliance office and did all the proper paperwork).  They fed us an amazing meal that included BBQ ribs and chicken, salad, fruit, potatoes, rolls, and cupcakes.   Our team enjoyed a wonderful meal and some social time together in the Lee's backyard on a perfect evening for such an event.

Under the Lights

We knew it would be difficult to have the type of success at the Nevada Twilight that we had a year ago.  Capturing the team title by going 1-4 is never something you expect to do.  This year we brought a less experienced group with four runners who were making their season debut.  With this meet being the middle of three consecutive Saturday races I am using the first two meets to test out different lineups and race most individuals in only one of those meets.

We were able to grab 3rd place in the team standings and had three runners finish in the top 25.  In her first ever collegiate race, freshman Charlotte Kuzminsky captured 12th place and led our team effort.  Sophomores Lauren Mills and Kate Stringfellow were 21st and 22nd.  Hillary Troutner and Lucy Yates were 26th and 27th.  Megan Combe rounded out our six runners in 29th.

We opened too conservatively and then had to fight to get back into the shorter than normal race.  I thought we made a great effort  and several of the gals ran even 2K splits which is a good sign that they are developing.  However, the races are going to continue to get longer and the competition will not get any easier.  So we will continue to work hard and prepare for the upcoming meets.  Next Saturday we will be in Bozeman, MT for the Montana State Invite.  It's a three mile race held on a beautiful golf course.  The last two miles are flat and fast, so we will have to be ready to change gears.

This week is homecoming and rivalry week so their is sure to be lots of extra fun and energy on campus.

Off to the Biggest Little City...

For the second consecutive we will race at the Nevada Twilight meet on Saturday night in Reno, NV.  Last year we went 1-4 with then senior Alyssa Abbott returning to her hometown to set a course record leading a dominating Utah performance.

This years race is scheduled for 9:10pm local time and will again be 4K in length.  This year's Utah team will be significantly different than the one that ran last year.  With another great race looming next weekend at Montana State I will be holding out several of our top runners.  This gives some of our younger runners an opportunity to adapt to college running with shorter than usual race.  It also gives some of our runners who might normally be non scorers a chance to be top runners and score for us.  It will be a different challenge and I want to see how they respond in that role.   It's part of developing depth that can help us later in the season.  Check back here after the race for results and hopefully a few pics.

The XC Season is Now Open

We finally opened the 2012 cross country season this past Saturday morning up in Logan at the Aggie Invitational hosted by Utah State.  This has been our opening meet in all but one of my eight seasons at Utah.  However, this is the third different course we have competed on.  That makes it slightly more difficult to gauge our overall improvement as a program.  However, as season openers go I saw some things I liked (we were aggressive, we positioned ourselves well early in the race) and some things that we need to fix (we were too aggressive at the start burning too much energy early, we must finish better even when we are tired).

We only ran a select group of runners who I felt were ready to race.  We held out several of our top runners due to extended track seasons, injury, or training schedule.  Most of them will open their seasons this coming Saturday at the Nevada Twilight.  The early season meets do not have any affect on conference or national rankings/standings.  I like to take advantage of that by getting our younger runners in some early races and trying some different combinations of runners.  This allows us to optimize training and practice time and race when I feel individuals are ready to make solid contributions rather than racing just because it's on the calendar.

I thought our top three (Susannah, Andrea, and Nikki) all ran solid races.  I liked the positions they were in early in the race, but they have to get to those spots using less energy.  Kate had her best summer of training ever and was a little more controlled in her early pace, but just needs some races. For some people no matter how great their training has been, they simply need races to maximize those efforts.  I would know because I definitely fit into that category and I think that is the case with Kate.  Megan ran her first race in almost two years after finally recovering from foot surgery.  She had an accessory navicular bone in her foot removed.  After a solid summer of training she will now work to get back into race form.

Next Saturday we will be at the Nevada Twilight and again we will race without all of our runners.  At least three runners who didn't compete in Logan will open their seasons. Two or three of our gals who ran at USU will not race.

The following video from USU was taken at 1000m into the race.